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By Dubayoo
#14855346
Before I start, note that I say irreligious, not atheist, because I'm considerate to the potential of "God" being an evil mad scientist. Perhaps he's an alien on a level of existence we can't reach who created our world just to experiment with his creations. If you want, you can call me a disappointed agnostic.

In any case, there are a few main reasons for this, none of which have to do with interaction with the conventional atheist, secular, or radical communities. Instead, they have to do with interacting with religious people not just directly, but on an institutional level and receiving many disappointing responses (or lack thereof). It also comes with conferring with other disillusioned ex-religious people who are similarly disappointed.

What I say here should not be against any particular religion either. I've found problems across many religions whether Protestant or Catholic, Jewish or Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu. While it's nice to believe religion is effective at tempering humanity's emotional urges, the truth is that temperament is highly biased, especially among religions that take scripture literally instead of figuratively. Literal religions tend to be worse because they remain stubborn about the ancient ceremonies described without any consideration towards the many ways faith can be expressed or how human development can achieve more precision in living supportable lifestyles.

Even among traditionally figurative religions though, there tends to be a problem in the manipulation of interpretation. Followers don't care about the construction of consensus as much as they care about appearing as the center of attention. It's actually the same problem we see among mass media consumption today. People don't care about making sense as much as trying to appear that sense is made around them. You end up with favoritist patronage being paid to whoever has the most compatible styles with what others want both towards their sense of taste as well as their fight or flight mechanisms when it comes to standing up for right and wrong.

For example, there are many scriptures which tell people what they must refrain from doing in order to treat others with respect, but these scriptures are often subject to graceful living. What does that mean? Grace is a very touchy subject that really depends on who you ask, and many people have very emotionally biased interpretations of it. They say someone is graceful is they're living an obviously pleasant life, but what pleases someone doesn't please everyone. Others say grace is about being sensitive to others around you, but how sensitive must you be? What happens when some are graceful but others are not?

Then, you have the matter of forgiveness which often results in people behaving badly because they anticipate they'll be forgiven while those who judge their bad behavior are condemned. On the other hand, people are expected to conform to authorities nonetheless, so how is this consistent? It's even worse when people claim to have a calling to be an authority, or a calling to behave a certain way. Do people, therefore, have callings to behave sinfully? What happens when people seem to have conflicting callings as well? How are we supposed to coexist in peace when multiple people are attempting to achieve the same thing in the same place?

This whole battle between grace and callings over forgiveness just creates a lot of conflict which no religion seems to have an answer to. It's like they just expect people to magically cohere. Yes, there are dogmas to adhere to on your actions, but the intentions behind actions are often clouded. This becomes especially problematic when enforcement of authority becomes vague due to different people having different perspectives on who's done what. For example, you can have a thief who took another's property and should be forced to give it back... but what if that thief took property because one had property taken from oneself in the first place, yet authorities were too corrupt to punish the original taker? This even gets worse when corruption itself becomes argued over such as grace is argued over before.

On top of this is the matter of good works where people will say others should demonstrate their grace through them, but then, people debate how good works should be judged and who should judge them. This reinforces the previous problem of enforcing authority as well, especially when people claim authorities themselves aren't performing good works.

In essence, the problem with religions is how good works are empirical, callings are fatalist, and grace is emotionally influenced. Yes, it's nice that religions believe in deities, souls, and afterlives, but in the real world, those ideas don't really matter. Afterlives might give people consideration to what happens after they're dead, but when people are forgiven to enter paradise, that consideration becomes diminished. Souls might convince people they have free will, but conflicts between souls remain unsettled as well as how souls should be reconciled with callings. Deities might convince people we all belong to a common source, but when grace has many ways of being interpreted, it results in divergence, not convergence.

Despite this, I often wonder why atheists don't appreciate this, and it makes me wonder if being for or against religions is even a meaningful stance. Atheists often seem to have the impression that religion is a rational belief system that's about upholding moral standards, but they seem to have a very shallow understanding of how religion really works. Heck, I've seen plenty of atheists come back to faith, especially once they get married after graduating from university...

...and those atheists only make matters worse.

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